It should be pretty obvious that I am a do-it-yourself evangelist. But recently I was tackling a project that I just couldn’t make work right. Which of course brought back memories of other do-it-yourself projects and it made me think. Remember the Nike slogan, “Just Do It”? Well, when is it “Just Don’t Do It”? Looking back on my history, I thought about a few of the times I probably shouldn’t have done it. I don’t really want to call them “failures” but some didn’t really work as planned and a few at all.  

As I’ve mentioned before, I grew up in a family of do-it-yourselfers. If we couldn’t buy what we needed, we made it. If I couldn’t afford what I wanted, I made it whenever possible. And if it was too expensive AND I couldn’t make it (or find a friend who could) then I didn’t need it. This experience started when I was a kid hanging out in the family business. Too young to work productively and too old for a babysitter, I was left with plenty of time to create things with leftover parts, assembling nuts and bolts and scraps of metal into sculptures or items that seemed useful to a kid at that time.

As I got older, I remember creating snowboards out of old water skis. Did they work? Yes. Were they practical? Kind of. Were they safe on hills within the city limits and sliding across streets? Probably not. I would have been safer just skiing on the water skis behind the snowmobiles like my older siblings. 

I bought my first new street motorcycle and immediately started modifying it, building my own lowering blocks for the suspension and freeway/highway pegs. Safety tip: if you build the highway pegs too low, they catch on the pavement in tight turns. That was a “just don’t do it” memory that I was happy to survive!  

Okay, I have never stayed away from a challenge. Motorcycles, cars, home projects and yes, boats are all fair game. But sometimes you need to know when to say no. Being independent and having the tools and abilities for lots of projects, still doesn’t mean you should take every project on. Maybe it’s a safety or operational issue that changes the situation. Or maybe it is just time. Sometimes it’s just better to let someone else do it. 

For years I have had a fancy espresso maker. Okay, I have a coffee addiction. I make coffee at home before work, stop at a coffee shop on the way to the office, have maybe another coffee or iced coffee at the office and often a decaffeinated espresso at night.  Hence the espresso maker. Anyway, the on/off button failed. Seemed like an easy fix: replace the button. A little research and I found the micro button online for about five bucks. Things were looking up, until I attempted to test the old button to confirm that was definitely the part I needed. I inserted a tiny screwdriver to depress the micro button installed on the small circuit board. You should have seen me jump when the sparks flew. After that attempted diagnostics, the switch was now permanently “on” and a pump motor was constantly running. So much for that repair. Now I really did need a new espresso maker because they no longer make the parts I melted. 

I have modified a radiator in a car for an engine conversion where I unknowingly bypassed half the radiator. Not surprisingly, that car ran “hot” for a while until I figured it out. I also built my own ski/tow bar for an old junk runabout and installed a larger outboard than the boat called for to make a cheap fast ski boat and almost tore the gunwale off that boat. Not everything works.

And back to my do-it-yourself project that I couldn’t get done. I finally decided it did not fit. With enough modifications I could make it work, but where do I stop? And what happens to the warranty and the safety of the product once I start cutting, drilling and changing it? 

Even I can admit there are some limits, although I need to make the attempt to find my limit. As I have been told, “Just because you could, doesn’t mean you should!”